Ohio Barnstorming Tour, Day Two, Part Two

This chronicle of my weekend in Ohio has taken longer than I intended - sorry! - but I'm going to try and move it along now.

After wrapping up our visit to Point Pleasant, Julie and I still had some time on our hands so we took a drive south of Gallipolis to enjoy the view of the Ohio River. Several miles downstream, we turned it around and headed back into town, where we arrived at the First Baptist Church for the wedding of Patrick O'Donnell and Barbara Hood.

I've already described some of the backstory of the wedding in earlier posts here, but let me recap. Patrick and I have known each other since the early '90's as co-workers and eventually friends here at Wedgwood. He's in his mid-40's and for a number of years it seemed almost a settled fact that he just wouldn't get married. A transplant from Ohio, he came to Grand Rapids to pursue his graduate education in the late 80's, got a job here and has lived away from his hometown ever since. Several years ago, he made the commitment of buying a condo, making his settledness in Michigan more of an established fact. He had a comfortable bachelor's life going and just given his personality and temperament, he gave the sense of being content in his status as a single guy. Patrick is an earnest Christian, an ordained Baptist pastor, who now works as a full-time chaplain at Wedgwood. He also likes science fiction, political discussions, sports and all sorts of other cultural and psychological topics of interest. Beyond that, he's a warm, generous, big-hearted guy who relates well across the spectrum of personalities and diverse backgrounds represented in our workforce. In short, he's a beloved figure. When he began dating a childhood acquaintance from his hometown, it generated a lot of interest from folks who've gotten to know him well over the years, and the cuteness of the couple when you got them both together only added to the intrigue.

So after all the courtship and anticipation, here we were down on the southern edge of Ohio, a bunch of us from Grand Rapids here to see our pal get hitched. Patrick and Barb planned out a beautful, gracious service, full of music and sweet emotion - I'm sure that for most of the people there, this was one of the more unique weddings we'd ever been to, given the age of the couple and both of them married for the first time. Patrick pulled off one of the most remarkable things I'd ever seen, singing two songs in his own wedding, one of which was a solo of Steven Curtis Chapman's "I Will Be Here," which is almost too emotionally wrought to sing to one's beloved on any occasion, much less a ceremony like this one where everyone in the world who means a lot to you is sitting there staring at you. I was very impressed at how he managed to corral and channel his emotions. The rest of the music was excellent as well - another co-worker of mine, Karen who is also Wedgwood's CFO, played the flute and did so exquisitely. I'd gotten to know her well recently as we did some interviewing our a new IT manager together, and figured she'd be pretty good with her instrument, but she still surprised me with her skills. I'd have to say that the aesthetics of this wedding struck me more profoundly than just about any other such proceedings that come to mind. (And though it may sound harsh to say it this way, I've been to a lot of "mediocre" weddings over the years...)

So here are a few pics of the day, probably of more interest to me than to most anyone else who would read this, but I'm sure you can manage!


The Groom (center) and a bunch of my friends from Grand Rapids.


Karen and me and Julie and Joy and LeRae at the reception.


The happy, adorable, relaxed, just-perfect-for-each-other newlyweds!